MOLECULES 
AND MAN 


By 
ROBERT E. ROSE, Pu.D. 


E.I. DU PONT DE NEMOURS & CO. 
Dyestuffs Sales Department 


WILMINGTON, DELAWARE 
U.S.A. 


Copyright 1920 
E. I. du Pont de Nemours & Co. 
Wilmington, Del., U.S.A. 


Molecules and Man 


N industry which produces over a billion 
A dollars’ worth of finished products is 
important; an industry which makes a 
billion dollars’ worth of invisible particles is 
interesting; an industry which insures our 
future is valuable; an industry which de- 
fends our homes is essential. It is the 
Chemical Industry which does all of these 
things and it, therefore, is of primary in- 
terest to all citizens because of its direct 
influence on national prosperity. It is as 
essential to modern civilization as agricul- 
ture is to any civilization. 


Human accomplishment, insofar as ma- 
terial products are concerned, is entirely 
dependent on man’s intellectual develop- 
ment and on the materials at his disposal. 
The great advance in the arts which has 
taken place in recent times is a direct out- 


[3 ] 


come of man’s success in making new sub- 
stances, substances which do not exist as 
such in nature. This advance during the 
past century has been greater than during 
all previous history and during all that time 
which passed before the beginning of re- 
corded years. 


Some may object that the primary cause 
of all recent progress in the mechanical arts 
is to be found in Watt’s invention of the 
steam engine, which has grown to mean all 
the multitudinous steam-driven devices of 
every description whose motions are the 
heart beats of industry. But in truth Watt’s 
discovery was the outcome of one made long 
before, when man found that from red rust 
he could obtain metallic iron. 


It is no coincidence that the unparalleled 
development in all human enterprise which 
the past half century has seen has coincided 
with the introduction of many new mate- 
rials, the discovery of new methods of ob- 
taining in quantity many substances which 
were formerly only rarities, and the large- 
scale production of substances by much 
cheaper means. 


[4] 


To the useful metals of the ancients none 
was added until aluminium was extracted 
from clay by the chemists of to-day. It is 
easy to extract gold and silver which are 
found as metallic particles in the earth’s 
crust; harder to obtain iron, zine, copper 
and tin, which occur as substances in which 
the metal is as much hidden as the charcoal 
in sugar. But it is most difficult to obtain 
aluminium, which can be extracted only by 
the aid of the electric current; and that is 
why it remained unknown for so many hun- 
dreds of years. Likewise the metals chro- 
mium, vanadium, tungsten, and molybde- 
num have become available for the benefit 
of man, who could have no automobile and 
no mazda light without them. 


Even more astonishing has been the prog- 
ress made in building substances nearly re- 
lated to those which go to form the animal 
and plant body—organic substances, the 
compounds of carbon. In the case of metals, 
the chemist can only set them free; so far he 
has not found it possible to make metals 
which do not occur in some form in nature. 
But in the group of carbon compounds he 
produces substances as the need for them 
arises. 


[5] 


Thus the organic chemical industry to- 
day produces drugs to allay fever, to dispel 
pain, to calm the nerves and to stimulate the 
sluggish heart; dyes for wool, for silk and 
cotton, black and of every hue with proper- 
ties to meet the requirements of the user, 
dyes of evanescent beauty of shade or of 
such ruggedness as to resist all harsh treat- 
ment; fibers of the glossy beauty of silk or of 
the coarseness of horse-hair; explosives; 
cosmetics; perfumes; disinfectants and 


foods. 


In every walk of life we use these products 
of the organic chemist’s skill. Indeed, so 
universally do we use or enjoy these that we 
lose sight of the fact that they were all un- 
known in the days of our great grandfathers 
and that our comfort is more than was theirs 
because of just these things. 


Yet think what surgery without anesthe- 
tics means; that is, without ether, chloro- 
form, nitrous oxide, and then consider that 
all these are substances made on the earth 
by chemists and do not exist in nature. Re- 
call the great engineering feats of modern 
times—the Panama Canal, the great tun- 
nels which have brought together nations 


[ 6 ] 


that for hundreds of years have been sepa- 
rated from each other by mountain barriers; 
then realize that these were made possible 
because man learned to make molecules out 
of the atoms which nature furnished, mole- 
cules endowed with the power of high ex- 
plosives. And when next you see the tragi- 
comedy of the screen moving to rapid ful- 
filment, take thought that this great factor 
in the lives of the people of all nations has 
come of the organic chemist’s discovery of 
a film. 


It is the province of the chemist to make 
new kinds of matter. To do so he must 
change each least unit of the substances he 
uses for his building. His units are mole- 
cules and the atoms of which molecules are 
composed. To him every substance in 
measurable quantity is an aggregate of in- 
numerable molecules and of a still greater 
number of atoms. He knows that molecules 
can be built up, broken down, or the atoms 
in them rearranged; but that in each case 
the original substance disappears and an- 
other takes its place. 


It is difficult to find a simile for this 
which will convey its meaning to those who 


[7] 


have no knowledge of chemistry. Perhaps 
the best is to say that molecules are like 
words, atoms like letters. If words are 
considered as concrete objects then it is 
possible to think of the dye indigo as a mass 
of units, each being the word “indigo.” 


In making this word (molecule) the chem- 
ist uses simpler words (molecules); some of 
only one letter, but still a word, like “I.” 
He cannot use single letters that do not 
form words because nature only furnishes 
perfect molecules, though these are some- 
times made of only one kind of matter. 
Given these simpler molecules, which may 
be represented as 


I -— gin —- I - nod - dog - I 


he puts them through processes which loosen 
the atoms from each other and cause them 
to become rearranged in a new order. Just 
as the words above can be regrouped to 
give 

Indigo — Indigo. 


The individual letters do not change in 
word building—neither do the atoms in 


[8] 


making molecules. Evidently the same ar- 
rangement of atoms (letters) in a molecule 
always gives the same molecule (word) with 
identical properties. This analogy is close 
enough to make clear that the chemist is 
engaged in a sort of game in which with cer- 
tain groups of atoms he is trying to find out 
how many different kinds of molecules he 
can make. 


He has gone as far as producing over 
100,000, all made of carbon (C), oxygen 
(QO), hydrogen (H) and nitrogen (N), 
which shows that his units can be rearranged 
in more ways than can letters to form 
words. 


As a matter of fact, the chemist does use 
letters when indicating his molecules on 
paper; but his spelling is strange. ‘““Indigo”’ 
becomes: 


H 0 0 fs 
y H 


“YS - LY): 
NAY Aes 


4 i 


[9] 


which is unpronounceable, but is a formula 
which has great advantages. “Indigo”’ 
brings to mind just a blue substance; writ- 
ten in the chemist’s way, it means a certain 
number of atoms of carbon (C), of hydro- 
gen (H), of oxygen (O) and of nitrogen (N), 
grouped in a definite order, telling him the 
relationship of indigo to other substances. 
In fact, once he learned that this was na- 
ture’s way of spelling indigo he found that 
he could make it in a way nature never had 
used. This then is chemical industry: 
the rearrangement of atoms to give more useful 
products than the molecules in which the atoms 
are supplied. 


But what makes the industry most aston- 
ishing is that its finished products, the mole- 
cules, are inconceivably small. A thimble- 
ful of air contains 6,000,000,000,000,000,000 
molecules. Were each of these to be con- 
verted into an orange, the fruit would be 
sufficient to cover all the United States with 
a layer 1,000 feet deep. 


In a square inch of sock there are about 
20,000,000,000,000,000,000 molecules of dye. 
In the case of Pontamine Black EX, which 
is used to a great extent for hosiery, each 


[10] 


molecule is composed of seventy-nine atoms 
in this order: 


H — C- H 
a o 
Hy “tp ane 
i 


The building up of such a molecule requires 
a long series of processes which can be made 
clearer by using the chemist’s method of 
drawing molecule pictures. 


[11] 


The molecules of intermediates from which 
it is made are these: 


H-N-H A Ne HH-N-H 
| | | 
C ¢. 

H — FN ey Hey re C—H 
H — a C hs Fs es 
WE) XZ C 

VIETHPPIEN VLENE BENZ/OINV 
LY OU TINE 
4 
] 
O N-N-H H-N-H 
| | | 
¢, ¢. C. 
eh eo oF ee e. ; 
NUN Yee C=-H 
5 ia ee A 
Z\1~ ! \ ZINN 
0 0 O48 Hite Ooh DieeO H 
] 
H H 
4. AC/O AIVL/A/ 


These intermediates are in turn made from 
the crudes benzene and naphthalene in this 
way: 


[12] 


je 
FN Noa ae: 
4 
BLNZENE sia Hage 
) 
AY 
baie ee RE: 
Ue Ler eae aN | 
eh. a, H Be Ra 
oe ee 
AIVILIN - MIF 0 BENZENE < 
Rea NH 
| LENLIDINE 
H- N-#H O=N=0 


METH FHENYLENE = LDINM/TKO BENZENE 
DIE TINE 


H H 
1 \ 


C. C. 
nee Neg » ay 
H — NZ wa ee | 
t { 
H H 
WVAPPYTHAL ENE 
O-H O-H O 
! | il 
O=5=0 H Q0=5=0 N=0 
t { I t 
C. G C C. 
Fie ein: (a 
Cc re —-H c 
PE hn re 0=5=0 Ketek VAN A O=s=0 
ash i ‘ O-H O-H #H H 0 -H 
NUUPITIVILEIVE 7K WITRO MOFFITHALENE 
SOLFUWUONMIC C70 KT SULFHOMIC ACD 
O-H H tt H 
1 ' t I 
0=6-=0 N-# 0 N-'H 
t ' \ 
C i 
mee es 
Cc C C | c 
NN te se | EN 
1 \ | | \ 
Oo -H i H O-H O-H UH : O-H 


AOCH ACID H ACTD 


It should be understood that every suc- 
ceeding formula represents a distinct manu- 
facturing operation, involving other mole- 
cules, such as sulphuric acid, which are not 
shown. Each is repeated billions and bil- 
lions of times in every batch of color. There 
is no other industry which can even ap- 
proach the record of the dye business for 
unit output. What other industry can sell 
40,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 pieces of one 
of its main products for a dollar? Every 
pound of Pontamine Black EX contains 
about 40,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 mole- 
cules, each composed of its seventy-nine 
atoms, every atom being in place and in the 
proper relation to the others, each molecule 
smaller than anything which the eye can 
see even with the highest-powered micro- 
scope. Tiny as these particles are, there are 
so many of them in the pound that if they 
were strung like beads on a string they 
would extend 130,000,000,000,000 miles, or 
roughly 710,000 times to the sun and back— 
a distance so vast that it would take light, 
moving at 196,000 miles per second, 21 
years to traverse it. 


Every molecule must be like every other 
to give a uniform dye and it does not mat- 


[15 ] 


ter whether the atoms are assembled here or 
abroad; the dye made up of the same mole- 
cules must be the same in every property. 
Germany did invent many dye molecules, 
but when these are made in America the 
resultant dye cannot differ from the Ger- 
man. To talk of a German molecule is 
absurd; to talk of the superior fastness of a 
German molecule when compared with that 
of the same molecule made in America is 
foolish and can only come of a lack of un- 
derstanding. It is as unreasonable as to say 
that pure sugar made in Colorado can be 
less sweet than pure sugar made in 
Germany. 


There is a necessity for a national organic 
chemical industry as a part of that organiza- 
tion which is needed as a preparation for 
war. This has been stated frequently, but 
not too often. When war comes, if it must, 
then the focus of national activity changes. 
Not the citizen, but the citizen soldier be- 
comes paramount. He must be equipped; 
he must be made terrible for the offensive 
by all the means the nation has; he must be 


[16 ] 


made invulnerable in defense by all that he 
can be given. These two requirements mean 
a fundamental shift in the center of gravity 
of the nation’s industry. ~Fhree essentials 
stand out—steel, explosives, food. Any one, 
without the other two, is useless. Two of 
these are chemical industries; the second is 
no less important than the first. Bayonets 
without bullets, shells without bursting 
charges—an absurdity! Explosives, all the 
materials of offensive warfare, are made by 
the chemist. There is no question about the 
steel industry; that is one grown strong in 
peace. But what of that other, the organic 
chemical industry, which is as essential? Its 
future among us is insecure! If the proposal 
were made to leave the country without a 
steel industry the nation would not tolerate 
the suggestion for a moment—but the in- 
dustry of dyes and pharmaceuticals is just 
as essential. | 


Anyone can see that the making of steel 
rails and boiler plate is closely related to 
making rifles, cannon and battleships. To 
see the relation of dye-making to T.N.T. 
and tetryl is not so easy. It is in this that 
our formulas will help us. 


[17 ] 


LY FONT CHV FTL VIOLET 


VGH EXPLOSIVE 


a Yad Ce eep f 


INTER TIED! OT E 
DIMETHYL ANILIN 


* 


| | DZLYNMONS WIC 


WINCOS INS) 7QL OXLNV-LNAS 
SLYMWIW 1727S LLAIVSIWSALM 
AMI ISSN 
DOLHNVOLSIT 0 
bee eee | Ne Sh 
“0 -N = 9< —— ee eas aN 
HI MO7T7H SMIWELNOS N - 9 9-9-4 
or woe : 
: a 
H H H O=S-OPN : : 
i ¥ | { ’ | 
I=) eed 
ie ee ee 
H oH 0 eae 4 
ie 
HT] 
H H 2H 
j j / 
H H ===, ——— 
fe eee ra Spo nen 
H H Nee EEA 
fron oan 


OY CYLLSYIL/ 
H H H oH 


pos (al 

W- 9- O—- G- 9-9-1719 
1 | | i 
H 4H H 4H 


INSTALLS 
H H 
oak 
9=90 
act 
H H 

TOHODTE 
H H 


1 t 
Heo to. Os Oo 
' d 


H H 


BS 


OHI WAV S 
SPATEOISKS HUH 


TONMSAS 
GIG WOES) 


LN 
SNMSOTSKS HOH 


INFN7TOL OHLIN-LUSV AS 


LLYAITSIWALL/V/ 


9=2=90 
| 
Ne 
Na 
} 
am “¢) -L 
1 
x= 


DMMAOTANSHAMC OXLIN GXFH 


FMS01AX 4 HOA 
O=N=0 INSZNIFOVOTHS OLLIMIO OIG HAHA 
LLMOINALLN/ SNCORMSKT HOI 
H ky -_ 
0 O=N “0 O= N= 0 
— Bes 
1] 
r) aN 
H-N 
| 


X= O-Z=-80 
| | 
| | 


NMONVVA @70WYOL 


NIG IG INTIOHS 176° 


INIZNIG 
FONMY) 


INSZNIGONO7H) 
SLACFWAATLN/ 


ah DPD SMIMIOSASH) LNOS 117 
IMIWGAID INITANTOL 


SLYIVMWSISLM v MW/T/NE 
ees H- 2-H ~ FSLEOICIWITLN/ 
3 i 
1 AR: 
te ae Hones 
i 2 | ; 
Ne d-—-H Hore ree Mat H - LENS 
tebe \Z | : 
<e ae ] = ee 
ae Fe W- i Sr 
on epia H | 
H— 2 —H n 


EL NL ULL 


TNCOTINT HH IOI HIN 
i oe a oo! 
H- 9-H N-N-9-H 
: y : A o. H . 
b-/-k b-/N-8 
0 | } 0 Oo | 0 
-_ 4 3-H a ea 
x H <7 H 
o- Ne .\ O= Me ) \ 
eee INIITOL 
INFNTOL OILIMIOC Saas TINA) MING TAHLIWIT 
LOIGTWITLN] i — LHOFWILLN 
q : 


1 # 

% N 
H- 9-H alia eet nee 
i H 1 


1 
Bee : 
) = 2-H ; H ee -H Te 
fy) ise Seen eee ee | | | 
of ) 
| i | 


4 


2Z=0 


- reas oa AS A: 


0= N=0 
| 


-(Y>- ae Sy 
Oy \AS 


: ¥ 4 i 


LY FONT 1NOIGO 


ee: 
ee 


H H 


INTERMEDIATE 
PHENYL GLYCINE 


0 O-H 
ice Hom 7) Sanaa 
: : | 
ee A No NG 
cu a ; 
H 
CHLOKACE TIC ACID INTEKTIE DIATE 


AUNILIN 


Q=2z=9 
{ 
2 
Se y 
| 
O=Z=0 


LMGH LALLOSMVE 
Daa Ee 


QTABULIZE: FOP DIOKELL SS POWDER? 
LIPHE IN VLAYMINE 


DUPONT BASIC BLOWN 


H-cCc —H 


HIGH LXFLOAWNVE 
TNT 


INTEKITE DIATE 
TOLUYVLENE O11MNE 


INTERMEDIATE 
DINITROTOLUENE 


CRUDE 
TOLUENE 


H 

| 

Csi Q 

| 
ae 
me 


SYNTHETIC Olt. 
Oe 
BITTER PIONS 
BENZALDEHVDE 


SACCHARINE 


It should be understood that the equip- 
ment and the processes used in making such 
dyes are very similar to those used in making 
munitions. It is, therefore, proper to say 
that a dye plant is a potential munitions 
factory and, as such, of the first importance 
to national defense. It takes years to per- 
fect a dye plant; to have it ready means 
saving much precious time at the moment 
of national peril. Indeed, in the future it 
will come to having dye plants, or idle muni- 
tions factories, maintained at public ex- 
pense, as the only alternatives by which 
security can be insured. A nation without 
a dye industry must have special plants in 
which to make explosives at a moment’s 
notice. These will be a charge on the nation, 
but will be as essential as battleships, which 
are only really useful as a threat in time of 
peace. But idle munitions plants are need- 
less if the nation has flourishing dye plants, 
kept always efficient. 

More important even than plant and 
equipment are the trained men; those who 
can make dyes can make munitions, poison 
gases and everything else required. It does 
not take much study of the formulas given 
to make clear that manufacturing explosives 


[30 ] 


is a very highly specialized industry. The 
specialist is not made over night; he is the 
product of long training. From director to 
wage earner, the dyestuff plant is in the 
hands of just those specialists who are 
needed for making the materials used in 
warfare. 


That we succeeded in the conflict just 
passed was largely due to the fact that 
we had a reserve of trained men in those 
who taught chemistry in our institutions of 
learning. They came forward and saved us 
from humiliation. We had those men and 
we had two years during which we learned 
how to make explosives before we needed 
to use them for ourselves. If the attack had 
been directly on us, much valuable time 
would of necessity have been lost while the 
college men were learning to handle mate- 
rials on a large scale. 


It is true that Germany, with all her 
chemists, went down to defeat; but think of 
her wonderful resistance with all the world 
against her. In that resistance the efforts of 
her chemists show. Indeed, it is probably 
true that she would have won the war had 
she trusted more to them. 


[31 ] 


A permanent dye industry will mean a 
great stimulus to organic chemistry in the 
universities; it will allow of keeping more 
academic men engaged in research, and it 
is this research and it alone which can keep 
us up-to-date enough to give us a chance in 
the adaptation of chemistry to war. Mus- 
tard gas was first made in the university 
laboratory in the course of purely scientific 
investigation. These discoveries come of 
active investigation, they are a part of a 
growth in which we must share to keep our 
independence. 


Fortunately for mankind, peace is usual; 
war, unusual. During peace, however, na- 
tional competition continues to exist in the 
shape of commercial rivalry, in the search 
for employment by wage earners. ‘To meet 
_ this condition it is necessary for a nation to 
be efficient, to operate without waste, and 
to avoid placing itself in a position allowing 
of its being exploited. We have reached a 
very high degree of efficiency in manufac- 
turing, but we have not yet learned all that 
we should about utilizing by-products. For 
years we burned all the coal tar we made; 
we let the by-products of coke-making pass 
without utilizing them—burned them to be 


[32 ] 


rid of them. The waste ran into very high 
figures. ; 


We still burn too much of this, though the 
condition in the coking industry is much 
better than it is in that of lumber, which 
uses only 30% of its crude material and 
wastes the rest. A dye industry will mean 
saving one great waste; it may be objected 
that we do not need to destroy the coal tar 
by-products—that we can always export 
them to countries that are better fitted than 
we are to make dyes. That argument is not 
sound even in a selfish way, because it 
means that this nation should adopt a 
policy of living at the mercy of others. 
Before the war that is exactly what we did; 
we found out our mistake long before we 
became a party to the conflict. Our textile, 
leather, paper, and paint industries, to men- 
tion only a few, were nearly paralyzed by 
the fact that no dyes came in from abroad. 
Then we learned that the dye industry is 
indeed pivotal, essential to other industries 
employing millions and earning interest on 
billions of the people’s money. 


The only way to be free from the danger 
of monopolies held by other nations is to 


[33 ] 


have a home source of supply. Quite re- 
cently there has been another example of 
the danger and the necessity for safeguard- 
ing the public interest. 


Camphor is a product of very great 1m- 
portance because it is essential to the mak- 
ing of celluloid plastics, an industry whose 
products are valued at more than $10,- 
000,000 annually. It is obtained from the 
camphor laurel, and this grows chiefly on 
the Island of Formosa. Japan, by virtue of 
her possession of the source of supply, holds 
a monopoly of camphor; recently she de- 
cided to curtail her exports to this country. 
The price of camphor rose abruptly. The 
condition would have been disastrous had 
not the chemists in this country perfected a 
process for making this essential from the 
yellow pine instead of the laurel. The ad- 
vantage is apparent. 


If the coal-tar crudes obtained here are 
made into colors abroad, the millions of dol- 
lars representing the cost of producing these 
from the crudes will go to foreign labor, for- 
eign chemists and foreign company owners. 
Economically, it is unwise to allow the 
industry to leave this country. 


[34 ] 


War has come to mean more than a 
supply of men, guns and munitions; there 
are special paints which will not show when 
viewed through light filters used by airmen; 
there are varnishes (dopes) for the wings of 
airplanes; and compositions which will dis- 
infect fresh wounds—an infinite complexity 
of materials. 


A great many of these are furnished by 
that sister of the dye industry employed in 
making drugs, both therapeutic and prophy- 
lactic. This other industry is vital and 
should exist among us. It cannot develop 
to the fullest extent except in conjunction 
with the dye industry. 


How close the relationship is, the chem- 
ist’s formulas show; the molecule of acetyl 
salicylic acid (aspirin) may serve as an 
example. 


[35 ] 


' 
ZLCIAHLM FA 


WLAFGSILNEG 
HT HMLLNE 
WIIG HTAHW THE 
4 LIAN WE ULM 
! NIFPIILLMIM 0 110 
/ \ —H 
H 
| 


H-O 
d H 
' \ 

y W520 =20 


H-0O 
MV1AEE 0 
WIE HUNTS ULI = 


‘ica (i 


Le 


Sons ‘ 


2: 


SAIGORMI HUH (NESIONTES) 


Q/IE HWEHHaS SAT IMMENSHSSSA 
SLAIICSNSSLNM/ SAT WGHULDS ISLS TBULIPSIGIWS 6 HS 
GIG HINTS 
O=N=0 o=N=0 H =0 
! 1 I 
9 f 
ere Se Sau ae 
ee, ee. 
N - 9 -W Ne=—9 poe N ieee a =oH 
ey at pee aee MW 
1 
H = Boa! \ 
SLAOSTWAL/M/ SAT sy 
IWALATSLLNEY 
NETL CNT, GIG HI08SE) 
H 0 TONS ae 
! i] H ' | 


Atoms do not always arrange themselves — 
as wanted; frequently there are two possi- 
bilities and two kinds of molecules are 
formed. Sometimes the dye-maker is forced to - 
produce substances useful as material for 
making drugs, but useless in dyes; some- 
times the maker of drugs finds that his 
by-products can be used only as dye inter- 
mediates. 

Dye intermediates can be fashioned into 
drugs—aniline into antifebrine, ortho- 
anisidine into guaiacol. To take one indus- 
try from the other is to handicap both, to 
make both less economical. 


There can be no doubt of the value of the 
pharmaceutical industry; it transcends na- 
tionality; it serves humanity. It supplies 
the materials which in skillful hands make 
possible the mitigation, alleviation or cure 
of faults within our own bodies. It furnishes 
the munitions with which man fights his 
greatest foe—bacteria—in the war that is 
ever raging. 

Chemical warfare is no new thing; it is 
as old as disease. Tear-gas and sneeze-pro- 
ducer are the inventions of the microbes of 
a cold; the pneumococcus gases its victims; 
the bacteria of tuberculosis, typhoid, influ- 


[38 ] 


enza, plague, the diseases of childhood, each 
attacks with a different poison “‘gas.”’ 


Unfortunately, the “gassing’’ of victims 
is so much taken for granted that the na- 
tions make no real, concerted effort to over- 
throw enemies much more terrible, much 
more malignant, than any met with on the 
field of battle. Only when a devastation, 
such as that of the influenza epidemic 
comes, do the people appear to be alive to 
the necessity of an effort; a little money is 
spent, not one-tenth of that devoted to the 
building of a battleship—then forgetfulness; 
except in the laboratories and clinics where 
men and women work as best they can with 
the little they have to spend. 


The organic chemical industry, as a whole, 
not only fashions remedies; it supplies stains, 
reagents, disinfectants and the multitude of 
materials necessary in the study of disease. 
One hundred years ago medicine was nearly 
as empirical a “science” as in the days of 
- Aesculapius. To-day the organic chemist de- 
signs molecules to fight disease, just as he does 
dyes to give certain effects. He makes these 
for the physician’s use, veronal, novocain, 
antifebrine; these are but a few of them. 


[39 ] 


Cocain is a natural drug; it and others in 
its class the chemist isolates in a pure form 
with constant properties, a great improve- 
ment on the crude material formerly used. 
He analyzes these molecules, determines 
which grouping of atoms is really active, 
then builds new molecules which will em- 
phasize one or another of the properties of 
the natural substance. Within the normal 
body, growth, blood pressure, secretion are 
automatically controlled and the balance 
held by substances of many kinds. The ac- 
tive materials have in two cases already 
been isolated and analyzed and one can 
now be made from coal-tar in any desired 
quantity for use in treating the abnormal 
body. Adrenalin, the active principle which 
controls the blood pressure, this simple 
molecule of extraordinary power, 


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is an article of manufacture. 
[40 ] 


Such skill is a long way from that needed 
for the collection of herbs in the light of the 
full moon—but this is only the beginning. 


The ideal remedy for infectious disease 
would be to kill all the micro-organisms, 
bacteria or trypanosoma, without hurting 
the body—the very notion sounds hopeless. 
It means disinfecting a tremendously com- 
plex organism of extreme sensitiveness, made 
up of innumerable living cells—and yet this 
apparently hopeless problem, this incredible 
nicety of chemical action, lies within, the 
grasp of chemical therapeutics. The chemist 
can fashion molecules which act like spears, 
the “head”’ of each being a group of atoms 
which will only strike into the body’s foes, 
and to the “‘head”’ is attached another group 
of atoms which kills the micro-organisms or 
renders them so weak that they fall before 
the natural defenses of the body. The real 
meaning of this modern miracle is hard to 
grasp. These poisoned arrows are molecules 
smaller than those of Pontamine Black EX. 
They are thrown into the blood stream. 
They recoil harmlessly from the body cells, 
but penetrate the invaders when they strike 
them. Explosives to crush fortresses in the 
fighting of human warfare; “arrows” smaller 


[41 ] 


than the least living thing to destroy the 
body’s enemies within our bodies—such are 
the weapons that organic chemistry fashions! 
Does this industry not deserve a home 


here? 


What has been done points the way 
to what shall*be done. The things undis- 
covered transcend in importance those al- 
ready known. This nation must be strong 
in war, but even more, it must lead in the 
betterment of mankind. In both cases the 
matter is in reality one of man and mole- 
cules. It is necessary for this country to 
control her war molecules; it does not seem 
so necessary that she should control the 
making of those used in the efforts of 
peace. 


It is true that to the world it does not 
matter where the all-important molecules 
that shall rid the world of infectious disease 
are discovered; it matters only, and that 
most profoundly, that the molecules should 
be discovered. It is our faith that the dis- 
coveries will be made more certain, will come 
sooner if Americans are enrolled in the 
greatest possible number among those car- 
rying forward the work. But this means 


[42 ] 


that it does matter to mankind that dye and 
drug molecules should be made and studied 
here in factory and laboratory, because this 
activity is a fundamental prerequisite to the 
high evolution of that which must be Amer- 
ica’s contribution to the welfare of the 
world. 


[43 ] 


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3 0112 061415482 


